Conventional airliner and cargo aircraft are configured as high or low wing aircraft. The wings are positioned above or below the passenger or cargo compartment within the fuselage. The wings are attached to the fuselage through a wing structural box. The fuselage is attached at the top or bottom to the wing structural box depending on whether the aircraft is configured as a high-wing or low-wing aircraft. This wing structural box is typically very heavy since it needs to be substantial enough to bear a large portion of the wing loads and support the fuselage.
Mid-wing aircraft have the wings positioned at the sides of the fuselage at a position between the top and bottom of the fuselage. The wing structural box for mid-wing aircraft passes through the middle of the fuselage where a cargo or passenger compartment would be located in a cargo aircraft. There are performance advantages to a mid-wing configuration; however, because of the structural box passing through the fuselage and because the performance advantages are typically less of a consideration with cargo and passenger aircraft, mid-wing aircraft configurations are conventionally reserved for high-performance aircraft such as fighter aircraft and aerobatic aircraft. Moreover, the wings on these mid-wing aircraft are typically very thin for performance reasons, with the engines mounted to or within the fuselage. Because of the loads experienced by the thin wings, the spars include spar caps or chords that are structurally substantial, increasing the weight of the wing assemblies as compared to thicker wing spars. Moreover, the loads carried by thin wings also typically require substantially thicker aircraft skin than the skin used on thicker wings.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is presented.